Long Island weather: Dry, cool weekend in store following Friday's storm, NWS says

Fewer than 30 PSEG customers were still without power Saturday night following Friday's storm as Long Island settled into a dry, seasonably cool weekend, according to the utility company and the National Weather Service.

As of 9:41 p.m. Saturday, PSEG's outage map showed there were just 28 customers without power. The company had restored power for "more than 40,300" customers who were impacted, according to a news release from the company, which said the outages were caused by "severe" winds that reached up to 60 mph, downing trees and power lines.

In Brookhaven Town alone, there were "probably close to 200 trees that we removed" since the storm, according to Dan Losquadro, Brookhaven's superintendent of highways. He said dozens of those involved downed wires that his team worked to remove along with PSEG crews, telling Newsday, "it was a lot of work."

At least two traffic signals in Brookhaven lost power because of nearby car crashes, including one on Nicolls Road in front of Stony Brook University Hospital. Losquadro said that signal lost power shortly before midnight and had not yet been restored by PSEG as of about 2 p.m. on Saturday. 

"A motor vehicle accident snapped the utility pole and damaged a transformer," he said. "The power has not been restored there, but we have it on continuous generator backup."

PSEG did not immediately respond to a request for comment on when power will be fully restored to all customers.

The forecast calls for much calmer weather this weekend, according to NWS meteorologist Bill Goodman.

Wind gusts on Saturday will only get as high as 21 mph, which the weather service categorizes as a "fresh breeze." Conditions are expected to be partly sunny, with temperatures in the low 40s.

"Well, we're looking dry this weekend, that's number one," Goodman said. "It looks like it's going to be sunny to start, and then partly cloudy in the afternoon."

Temperatures will drop into the lower 30s on Saturday night before reaching the mid-40s on Sunday, when conditions will begin cloudy in the morning and become mostly sunny in the afternoon.

"The average high temperature at MacArthur [Airport] this time of year is 44, so this is seasonable," said Goodman, who added that temperatures on Sunday night will drop into the 20s.

Monday will be slightly cooler with high temperatures in the upper 30s and dry conditions throughout the day. Goodman told Newsday Monday's temperature is "a little bit below normal, but it is December."

The dry conditions are expected to come to an end by nighttime on Monday.

"Looks like the next chance of precipitation is late Monday night into Tuesday," Goodman said. "It looks like snow or rain-snow mix, turning into all rain during the day on Tuesday."